Friday, November 25, 2011

City Slang: Mike Watt prepares Spielgusher album

Stooges bassist Mike Watt will release the new album by his Spielgusher project on January 12, 2012.

Watt likes to keep busy with a variety of oddball endeavors, and Spielgusher is no different.

According to the bio, “The story of spielgusher begins at what would be near the end of the minutemen. me and d. boon were huge richard meltzer students. we knew of him from his helping to create rock-write. in most places where we read him, it was the only thing we found interesting. it was also gut busting and for corndogs like us, that meant brain busting - or was it the other way around? we dug the confusion. we knew of him from his "hepcats from hell" radio show on kpfk, they were on after midnight on saturdays. they were the best, they were a trip. literally for us - I'd be on the deck w/lights out and just listening/tripping/pondering/voyaging. of course we knew of him from writing lyrics for the blue oyster cult, of course! "scientist rock" is what he called the minutemen in creem magazine for a review of the "bean-spill" e.p. he sent a letter to us about being sorry for missing a gig cuz of a wedding so we put it on the back of our "buzz or howl under the influence of heat" e.p. he was a true hero of the minutemen. you can imagine how blown away we were when richard suggested a collaboration. "CRIMONY!" was the word from me and d. boon's mouth at the same time, damn! georgie was into it too. richard's idea was to give us ten sets of lyrics, ten spiels and he also wanted to play sax - fuck yeah! I remember getting the spiels from richard... it had be a few days or so since we had just finished a tour opening for rem around the southeast and such. I went over to d. boon's pad to give them to him cuz I wanted him to think of music to go w/them, I was gonna do the same thing and then we could pool our ideas, come up w/the best we could for richard cuz this was a mindblow we were gonna get to do this. I found d. boon all red w/fever, he had a sickness.

damn, he was like a lobster and thought he should stay home but he said he wouldn't be driving and anyway, I said look here's the richard meltzer spiels and he was so happy - like me, he couldn't believe it and face lit up w/a light that was nothing like the fever one I had found him w/when I got there - man, it was a righteous glow and we looked at each other as if to say "fuck yeah!" or something like that. he said he would take them w/him and work on ideas for them like me. that's the last time I saw him. I know this might read like drama but I'm just trying to explain the history of this proj.”

Bless him, Watt can ramble a little. Rest assured that this band is worth discovering.